How to fix 'Moo virus' causing zoomed-in screen, inverted colors, and mooing sound on iPhone?

Hi, this is usually not a virus — it’s most likely a Shortcut or Accessibility setting causing it. Try this: delete the HH School Fights shortcut, then go to Settings > Accessibility and turn off Zoom and Invert Colors / Smart Invert.

Quick fix

• Delete the shortcut.
• Restart the iPhone.
• Check Settings > Accessibility > Zoom and turn it off.
• Check Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and turn off Smart Invert or Classic Invert.

Else contact Apple Support iPhone - Official Apple Support

Hello 👋

For science, I downloaded this "moo virus" on my iPhone ! This was made to analyse it !

First of all, it's just a shortcut, there is nothing dangerous about it, it's just a shortcut that will change some accessibility settings and say moo moo (actually I did not test the sound part but it seems like it makes a cringe sound)

What to do after the shortcut is running

In fact this shortcut is repeating himself infinite times... So you can either open shortcuts and press on the shortcut to stop it or Force restart iPhone - Apple Support (CA)

After that, double press with 3 fingers to temporarily turn off the zoom, and then you will go and revert back the text size to normal, turn off smart/classic invert and turn off color filters...

Notice that this shortcut will also turn on airplane mode, off bluetooth, on dark mode and volume set to 100%

More can be added since shortcuts can change...

What I noticed :

• Since you are asking a lot to your iPhone, it can overheat a bit or be a bit slower, don't worry, just restart your phone after all and everything should be fixed...

• I won't tell the name of the shortcut but it's not moo moo, it doesn't have moo in the name...

After all

You can delete the shortcut but the most important thing is how you got pranked... if your friend knows your password, change your password... Make sure that you are the only one who have access to your phone and never download anything that you don't know...

You got lucky, this is just a shortcut but next time, it can be worse...

Hello, I tried out the moo virus just to see what would happen and write down some thing you may have missed out and how to move around with zoom:

The moo virus also turns on airplane mode and switches off Bluetooth.

The moo virus turns on zoom to "extra extra extra large" so you cannot simply navigate your phone to disable it, If you tried it out you need to move around the screen with 2 or 3 fingers and to disable zoom quickly you need to double tap with 3 fingers on the screen and turn the slider down.

This shortcut also loops itself so do not try to disable any settings including zoom while its still active as it will turn everything back to the crazy thing again, Try to delete the shortcut by navigating by sliding 2 - 3 fingers across the screen as simply using 1 finger will not move it at all. Restarting the iPhone may help although sometimes some people can edit it so it started as a automation when iPhone gets unlocked.

Please do not try to go to: http://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/d3c****************fb8b6cef Blocking for safety reasons! :)

Don't click suspicious links which have the "/shortcuts" Link in place.

And don't worry that's just a prank not a virus which steals data!

:)

sao137 wrote:

How to do this

How to do what?

Load some Shortcut rick-roll you heard about on TikTok?

How to get rid of the random shortcut you heard about on TikTok and unwisely then loaded?

How to get your data deleted by some random shortcut?

If you unwisely loaded the shortcut…

Force a restart, holding the last button press through until the Apple logo appears, continuing to hold that past any sliders that might appear:

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Then open the Shortcut app, and find and delete whatever shortcut you loaded.

It is not a virus, it is a shortcut that has been added/shared to you and other members of your Family Group. Go to the Shortcuts app and delete the shortcut and if the member shared the shortcut through iCloud, then on that members device, you would need to stop sharing the shortcut. For that, go to this Support Article and follow the steps under Stop Sharing a shortcut.

Share shortcuts on iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

That will immediately stop the moo sound, but for any changes made with the Shortcut you will need to go into Accessibility settings and change those back.

As for how it happened, that is most likely by one of your members that did it as a prank or were misled on a Social Media post to download the Shortcut. There are others you can find on Social Media that will say any phrase either hourly or at predetermined times.

SravanKrA wrote:

1. The Moo sound is surely from a third-party app. So if you’re hearing a cow’s “moo,” it’s probably tied to one of these:

No, it is a shortcut prank that is all over TikTok right now. Users are tricked into downloading these shortcuts and the "Moo" sound is heard on intervals along with changes in the Accessibility Settings. All you need to do is delete the shortcut and return the Settings changed back to their defaults.

jayjay122 wrote:

Hello my I phone 15 por max off block screen on screen help please 😭

Settings > Accessibility > Zoom : off.

Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Smart Invert : off

Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Classic Invert : off

Then delete the shortcut.

You have to use 3 fingers to unzoom, to click anything u have to press it twice, turn ur phone on and off to get rid of mooing then go to accessibility settings to turn off, colour invert, invert, smart invert and then figure out the rest

Bimma

Hello

To fix the Virus ( not really a virus ) you can use three fingers on your phone and drag you fingers to the shortcut app and click on the shortcut and delete or deactivate all the shortcuts that is put on your phone this will turn off all the shortcuts the easy way.

Another way to turn off the virus is using Siri and saying out loud “hey siri, turn off all shortcuts.

Also if you turn off all the shortcuts some might stay on like the color invert or smart invert so all you have to do is go to settings then display and text size and turn off either of those that are active.

Lovelexi wrote:

How do u delete the shortcut ????

Long press on the Shortcut in the Shortcuts app and you will see the option to Delete it. There is also an option to Edit the shortcut and that can be used to give you an indication on what it is doing.

Moinca wrote:

I don’t like the moo virus bc it glich my iPhone and now I have to figure out how to take this off

Remove the shortcut from Shortcuts app, and reset your accessibility settings, as discussed earlier in this thread.

Change your passcode and passwords too as somebody clearly knows your passcode and quite possibly much more. Unless you decided to load this shortcut yourself, that is.

jetziel256 wrote:

How to counter the hhs/moo virus. Never click on any links with "shortcuts" in them it'll be a virus

It does not download and install automatically on your iPhone just by clicking a link, that requires an intentional action on your part to install the Shortcut, including tapping the button that says "Add Untrusted Shortcut". As always you do not download anything from untrusted websites and TikTok is not a trusted website. The same is true for all Social Media sites where scams run rampant due to the anonymous nature of the users on those sites.

Shortcuts are a valuable tool where there is a Gallery of legitimate shortcuts right in the Shortcuts app that are Trusted for you to install. They are also quite easy to make yourself and very easy to share with friends. The keyword is "friends" there, which are people you actually know, not those that claim to be your friend on Social Media.

No, I reported the link to the moderators because of possible terms of service violation. The link to TikTok was useless, if nothing else.

It’s not a virus. It’s an Apple Shortcut. They’re easy to make, easy to share, but to the uninformed seem mysterious and impossible to remove. The correct advice has been given. Change your settings in Accessibility. There is no need to sensationalize this into something it isn’t.

Back in 2022, TikTok was (falsely) claiming calculator app could be used unlock any iPhone.

There have been other wrong, bogus, or entirely unwise suggestions propagated on the ‘net too, but that’s pretty much any day ending in “Y”.

In this case, this is a shortcut that adjusts existing accessibility-related display settings, with a plausible (and false) story used to convince the viewers.

Sorry to disappoint.

Double tap the screen with three fingers.